IF THE COVER of SI Swimsuit is some of the hottest real estate a supermodel can inhabit, the 50th Anniversary Issue cover is the Tribeca triplex of American newsstands. And if the featured models Nina Agdal, Lily Aldridge and Chrissy Teigen are to believed, they are delighted to occupy that space together.

“We really, honestly liked each other,” said Chrissy earlier this afternoon. “Of course you are going to hear that from anybody who does a group shot, but this time it’s true. The connection was natural and the mood was fun.”

An hour after getting the good news (a moment captured in the above video), Chrissy and Lily (Nina was out-of-town on a shoot) were on the 33rd floor of the Time-

Life Building in a conference room whose enormous windows look out onto the Hudson—by all accounts, on top of the world. There they prepped for the two-week press tour that would likely be the most laborious of their already high-profile lives. But neither model was thinking of small annoyances, especially not Chrissy. Now 28, she has been fan favorite ever since her 2010 Rookie of the Year debut. But nothing guarantees a cover—sorry guys, the Twitter pleas don’t often factor into editorial decisions—and it was safest to avoid thinking about it altogether which she managed to do, until that one magical day in the Cook Islands, late last October .

“It’s been many years that I’ve been doing this now and this was the first shoot where I was like, ‘This may actually have cover potential. We had this perfect water, perfect time of day, perfect light, perfect look, perfect suits, perfect everything. And with James Macari shooting, I just sensed it was going to turn out right.’”